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Comment by blocked_again | Hacker News Reader

Gates mother introduced Microsoft to IBM for the contract by speaking with the then Chairman of IBM, who she was an acquaintance of. How many of your parents can do something like that?

Sure, Bill is a very smart person. But it's kind of impossible to say for sure whether he could have been as sucessful, if he was born in a different family. Parents play a major role in shaping the mind of children. For what we know Bill would not even have gone for a programming career and might have been a TV news reporter was he born in some other family.

If he is born in some other family, is he even Bill?

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Think of it this way: how many people were as well off and well connected, and lucky as Bill Gates when he started out? let's say 100,000 people, conservatively? How many of those are as successful as he is?

Think of how many people were as smart and hard working as he started out? How many of them are sucessful as he is?

IBM went to Gary Kildall at Digital Research first.

Microsoft was already a very successful microcomputer software company at the time.

Yeah. But there is a good chance that it would not be remotely anywhere as sucessful as it is today has it not got the IBM contract.

Parents connection doesn't mean you will get the business out of personal experience it can even lead to the opposite to avoid being blamed for nepotism.

Are you saying that children with well connected parents and not well connected parents ends up getting similar opportunities in life?

No, I just wanted to say that having well connected parents doesn't mean that always will be beneficial for the child it can also work against them, like it did for me.

If he was born into some other family he wouldn't be bill gates but he would still be a very successful if far less notable businessman. To become world famous does take a degree of luck not just merit. People who only have merit are boring.

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